Kentucky Wildfire Burns cabin.

A wildfire in Rowan County burned 304 acres, threatened dozens of homes and destroyed a cabin on Tuesday.

Crews battled the blaze into the late hours of the night. Firefighters say strong winds whipped up the flames, making it difficult to get a toehold on the fire. When the wind finally died down later in the evening, the fire went with it.

Crews continue to mop up hot spots, and investigators are looking into what caused the blaze.

Kentucky Division of Forestry Dozer crew along with Structural Fire Departments from Elliottville,Morehead and Hayes Crossing-Haldeman protected around dozen homes in the area.

Update

April 9, 2010 — Fire departments responded to a brush fire about four miles up Christy Creek Tuesday afternoon that ended up burning more than 250 acres in Rowan County.

Elliottville, Hayes Crossing-Haldeman and Morehead fire departments responded to the forest fire that only destroyed one structure.

“The Division of Forestry went in and dozed, they dug a line down to the dirt to keep the fire from spreading,” said Elliottville Fire Chief Jackie Thomas. “The winds had the flames over 50 feet high and it was jumping their lines so they had to back up and cut another line.”

According to Thomas, the forest service digging lines would leave only dirt to feed the fire and would hopefully prevent the fire from spreading.

“We lost a hunting cabin in this fire on Seas Branch but no one was injured,” Thomas said. “The cabin that burned we couldn’t get to it because the wind blew the fire between us and the cabin. We were able to save another with cutting a fire ring with a dozer ring and water.”

“The forestry service went in and did some back burning to try to keep the fire from getting more fuel,” Thomas said. “The fire departments protected exposures and we tried to put a pump engine and hand crews at each exposure.”

According to Thomas, as of Wednesday morning the fire had been contained after the crews had been out all night.

“(As of Wednesday morning) it had a lot of hot spots and a lot of dead logs it could jump the line and spark up,” Thomas said.